Voice of Americahttp://www.voanews.com
Voice of America is an international news and broadcast organization serving Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, the Middle East and Balkan countrieshttp://www.voanews.com/Content/responsive/VOA/img/rssLogo.gifVoice of Americahttp://www.voanews.com
en2016 - VOA60Fri, 09 Dec 2016 09:32:18 -0500Pangea CMS – VOAFrom Hero to Villain? Trump's China Popularity Jolted by Taiwan CallDonald Trump's convention-breaking phone call with Taiwan's president has triggered a sudden shift in the U.S. President-elect’s popularity among Chinese social media users.
Prior to that December 2 phone call with Tsai Ing-wen, Trump had been gaining admirers on Chinese social media for much of this U.S. election year – a trend that accelerated after his November 8 triumph over his main rival Hillary Clinton. But in the days since the Taiwan call, Trump has faced a torrent of criticism from users of the Chinese micro-blogging site, Weibo.
In March, when Trump was in the midst of his battle for the Republican presidential nomination, Chinese state-run news site Global Times said it conducted an online survey indicating that 54 percent of respondents favored the then-Republican front-runner. It also reported that Trump was getting “increasing support” from Weibo users who were following pro-Trump accounts such as "Trump fan club" and "Great man Donald Trump."
How his popularity grew
Michel Hockx, director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, told VOA’s China 360 podcast that Trump had endeared himself to many Chinese with his reputation as an anti-establishment business tycoon and reality TV star.
"People saw him as a strong leader, as someone with personality, a kind of celebrity politician of the kind that they don’t get in China,” said Hockx. “For sure, there also was criticism – mainly about the system that makes it possible for someone like Donald Trump to be elected, and whether or not such a system, that we call democracy, would be suitable for China."
Days after Trump surprised many people by winning last month’s election, his Chinese social media standing got another boost from a little known member of his family. A nine-month-old Instagram video of his granddaughter Arabella reciting Chinese poetry resurfaced in China and went viral, generating a wave of positive comments. Arabella’s mother Ivanka – Donald Trump’s eldest daughter – had uploaded the clip in February to show her family celebrating Chinese New Year. Arabella, then aged five, had been learning Mandarin with a Chinese nanny.
Hockx, also a professor of Chinese literature, said there were two main reasons for the warm Chinese responses to the Arabella video. "One is, she is cute, and people like seeing cute images on the internet,” he said. “But in addition, what makes the clip stand out is that Arabella is not just speaking Chinese, she actually is reciting Tang dynasty poetry, which Chinese people value as the epitome of what is great about their classical tradition.”
Hockx said the Instagram clip also demonstrated to Chinese netizens that there are some Westerners who encourage their children to take an interest in Chinese culture. “Chinese people are used to the West dictating global language and culture, so to see the granddaughter of the U.S. president-elect reciting Chinese poetry in fluent Mandarin makes a lot of Chinese people feel good and proud of their country."
Trump further improved his post-election image among Chinese netizens by reiterating a campaign pledge to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement when he takes office. The TPP deal championed by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama was intended to create a U.S.-led Asia-Pacific trade bloc that excludes China.
The prospect of TPP’s impending demise was welcome news to Chinese netizens, according to Manya Koetse, chief editor of WhatsonWeibo, an independent blog about Chinese social media trends. “They thought that if Trump abandons the TPP, it could be a good deal for China,” said Koetse, also speaking to VOA China 360. “Only last week, I read a lot of people saying that, 'I really like this president, go Trump!' But after the (December 2) Taiwan phone call, a lot of people have shifted and they don't like this incoming president so much anymore.”
Social media mood quickly sours
Koetse said many Chinese netizens were confused by Trump’s decision to speak directly to Taiwan’s leader, something no U.S. president or president-elect has publicly acknowledged doing since 1979. China has long viewed Taiwan as a renegade province and objects to foreign governments engaging in high-level contact with the island’s leadership.
“A lot of Chinese netizens just call Trump a fool who doesn't know anything about diplomatic etiquette,” said Koetse. “But there also are many people who say this phone call was a strategic, calculated move by Trump and we should be worried about it. Others netizens are angry, saying Trump should not attempt to meddle in China’s business, and there is some arrogance within that (perspective), because they say, ‘no matter what Trump will do, China will win anyway’.” Trump tweeted that he took the Taiwan president’s call because she wanted to congratulate him on the U.S. election and that he appreciated the courtesy.
Will the good impressions that Trump and his granddaughter previously made in the Chinese social media sphere be forgotten?
“It all depends on what Trump is going to do in the next few weeks and months,” Koetse said. She also said many Chinese netizens did not like the alternative to Trump. “They thought of Hillary Clinton as a fake politician with a fake smile and saw her as hypocritical or corrupt. So even if they didn't like Trump that much, they liked him much more than Hillary, and I think even after the phone call, that feeling will remain."
http://www.voanews.com/a/from-hero-to-villain-trump-china-popularity-jolted-by-taiwan-call/3624658.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/from-hero-to-villain-trump-china-popularity-jolted-by-taiwan-call/3624658.htmlMon, 05 Dec 2016 22:53:16 -0500USAAsiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)US Criticism Mild as China Bars Hong Kong Independence ActivistsChina’s unprecedented barring of two election-winning Hong Kong independence activists from becoming lawmakers has drawn a relatively mild expression of disappointment from Washington.
Hong Kong’s High Court disqualified the two legislators-elect, Sixtus Leung Chung-hang and Yau Wai-ching, Tuesday, saying they failed to take a valid oath at a ceremony last month and would not get a second chance. Leung and Yau had altered the wording of the Hong Kong Legislative Council’s oath of office by using a derogatory term for China and displaying a “Hong Kong is not China” banner.
Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty from British colonial rule in 1997 under a constitution guaranteeing it a high degree of autonomy as part of one country with two systems of government.
Days before the Hong Kong court acted against the two independence activists, China’s top legislative body issued a ruling November 7 calling for the disqualification of Hong Kong legislators-elect who do not sincerely swear an oath of allegiance to Beijing.
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee ruling, an interpretation of the Hong Kong constitution, or Basic Law, prompted U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner to say the Obama administration is “disappointed by recent developments related to” the Legislative Council (Legco). Toner also urged Chinese and Hong Kong authorities and Hong Kong lawmakers to “refrain from actions that … undermine confidence in the one country, two systems principle.”
Another State Department spokesperson, Elizabeth Trudeau, reacted to the Hong Kong court’s November 15 move by saying Washington was aware of the development and repeating parts of Toner’s earlier statement, but without expressing disappointment or urging anyone to refrain from particular actions.
Familiar ambiguity
The Obama administration’s latest comments about Hong Kong appear to follow a pattern. In recent years, it has expressed concern about Hong Kong’s political disputes and social unrest related to democratic reforms, while also declining to take sides between the Chinese territory’s opposing pro-democracy and pro-Beijing/pro-establishment factions.
Robert Daly, director of the Washington-based Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, told VOA’s China 360 podcast that the Obama administration wants to avoid being once again portrayed by China as manipulating Hong Kong politics. Pro-Beijing media outlets accused Washington of inciting Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy protests and labeled protest leaders as American agents.
“I see the vagueness of the Obama administration’s latest remarks as recognizing the complexity of the situation, and recognizing that Chinese leaders may be acting unwisely but not technically outside of their jurisdiction,” Daly said. “The United States does not want to give Beijing a club with which to beat people in Hong Kong, namely, saying that they are the tools of America.”
Little sympathy
Daly, whose Kissinger Institute is a U.S. government-run research center, said the two disqualified independence activists bear some responsibility for their predicament.
“As someone who has been called on to swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution, I consider that a sacred duty,” Daly said. “I’m highly cognizant of sounding like an old fogey in saying this, but (the actions of Leung and Yau at the Legco swearing-in) were the kind of thing that idealistic, angry younger people tend to do. I think it was legitimate to give them another opportunity to repeat the oath as it was supposed to be administered — a bit of leniency that perhaps would have kept this from blowing out of proportion — but I don’t think that Legco should simply have taken obscenities or insulting oaths at face value. You can’t make light of the oaths or make of them whatever you want to.”
Leung and Yau have expressed no remorse for their actions at the October 12 swearing-in ceremony. They have vowed to appeal their disqualification from Legco to Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal.
Asking for trouble?
Richard Bush, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told VOA China 360 that Leung and Yau used provocative language that risked inviting Beijing to constrain Hong Kong’s autonomy.
“Beijing is interpreting speech as conduct, so talking about Hong Kong independence might be interpreted to be an act in favor of Hong Kong independence and therefore seditious,” Bush said. “So I think this situation is very serious, and that we may be seeing key pillars of the foundation of Hong Kong and 'one country, two systems' being eroded as we speak.”
The head of the Chinese government’s Hong Kong liaison office, Zhang Xiaoming, has defended Beijing’s intervention in the oath-taking controversy as necessary to stop what he called the “endless trouble” that comes with calls for secession.
If Yau and Leung lose their appeal, Hong Kong will have to hold by-elections to fill their vacant Legco seats. Any such elections likely would be held early next year, by which time Hong Kong’s small but increasingly strident independence movement will be an issue for the next U.S. administration of Donald Trump to deal with.
http://www.voanews.com/a/us-criticism-mild-as-china-bars-hong-kong-activists/3599576.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/us-criticism-mild-as-china-bars-hong-kong-activists/3599576.htmlThu, 17 Nov 2016 01:21:16 -0500Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/us-criticism-mild-as-china-bars-hong-kong-activists/3599576.html#relatedInfoContainerAdvisers Point to Key Differences Between Clinton, Trump on China PoliciesHow do the two leading U.S. presidential candidates differ in their policies toward China? In the latest VOA China 360 podcast, senior advisers to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump provided exclusive insight into three key differences between the Democratic and Republican nominees.
Expertise
In an interview with VOA last month, Clinton foreign policy adviser Laura Rosenberger drew a sharp contrast between the foreign policy expertise of real estate tycoon Trump and her boss, a former U.S. secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady.
"Hillary believes the U.S.-China relationship is maybe the most complex and consequential in the world today and would approach it by expanding cooperation wherever we can, and standing up when China is working against our interests," Rosenberger said, while describing Trump as "somebody who has a very simplistic view of the relationship with China — one that, as a matter of concern, is potentially informed by his own business interests."
Rosenberger cited U.S. media reports alleging that Trump owes significant debts to a Chinese bank and quoting him as raising the possibility of cutting economic ties with China if it prevented Chinese people from visiting the U.S. and staying at Trump hotels.
"Trump would be motivated by the fact that he believes China is harming his businesses. The idea that America could just cut off ties with China is ludicrous. We have so much that we need to work with China on, that we simply cannot wall ourselves off from the rest of the world," she said.
Trump senior defense adviser Alexander Gray pushed back against those criticisms in a separate VOA interview last month.
"Trump has laid out a vision for rebuilding our military and strengthening our alliances, including in the Asia-Pacific, with a ballistic missile defense system. This vision is anything but simplistic — it will provide the stability we need in that critical region," Gray said, adding that Trump's experience as a negotiator "who gets optimal outcomes for himself, his businesses and other parties" is the kind of experience needed to deal with some of Asia's "thorny issues."
Gray said Trump would provide more reassurance to America's Asian allies than Clinton did when she served as President Barack Obama's first secretary of state.
He said Clinton initiated a rebalance to Asia, telling U.S. allies that "we are going to be back in force in the region," while in reality the U.S. "cut back on our Air Force and Navy shipbuilding, sent some ships to Singapore and Marines to Darwin, Australia, and that is about it."
Gray said U.S. allies "can see that the trends are not good," citing North Korea's four nuclear tests during the Obama presidency, China's recent reclamation of 3,200 acres of land to create artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea, and its declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea in 2013.
"Instead of talking about an indefensible record, [Clinton's team] wants to talk about innuendo regarding Donald Trump," he added.
South China Sea
Rosenberger said Clinton's policy on South China Sea sovereignty disputes involving China and its neighbors would be to uphold her 2010 declaration, made while she was secretary of state, that the U.S. "opposes the use or threat of force by any claimant" and has a national interest in a "collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants for resolving the various territorial disputes without coercion."
"The U.S. will not take a side on the territorial disputes, but it is important that we not militarize the South China Sea, where we see so much commerce going through, where freedom of navigation is so critical to American businesses," Rosenberger said. "So for Hillary, this is about making sure that China is playing by the rules, while cooperating where we can — for instance, on climate change, where we have seen a lot of U.S.-China cooperation in recent years."
Gray said that kind of dual-track strategy toward China misses a key element.
"Trump is saying: We are going to make sure that the U.S. military has the most comprehensive buildup since Ronald Reagan was president, and we are going to invest in a missile defense system that our allies South Korea and Japan and our Southeast Asian allies want," he said. "Once we have done that, we can say to China: You stepped out of line, your actions are not in keeping with peaceful, liberal order in the region. And we will have the teeth to show that the U.S. is credible."
Gray said the Obama administration's occasional freedom-of-navigation exercises in the South China Sea lack such credibility.
"What China is doing in the South China Sea violates international law, as we have seen in the July ruling by the international tribunal in The Hague. What Trump is going to say is: We are going to restore our naval power, and when we assert our freedom-of-navigation rights like every power in the world, we will do it appropriately. There will be no ambiguity about it."
North Korea
Another focus of both candidates' advisers is China's relationship with its longtime ally and impoverished neighbor North Korea, a state that has drawn international condemnation for conducting a series of nuclear and missile tests this year.
Rosenberger said those North Korean tests are of deep concern to Clinton.
"She believes that we simply cannot and will not allow North Korea to obtain a deliverable nuclear weapon, which would be a direct threat to the U.S.," Rosenberger said. "She also believes that we need to work with our allies to increase the pressure on North Korea, so that it understands that its only choice is to give up its nuclear program. So far, they have been sanctioned, but not to a degree that has inflicted pain."
She said Clinton also would work with China to impose significant additional pressure on North Korea.
"That means doing some things that China may not like — taking a look at our defense posture and making sure we are doing everything we need to do to protect the U.S. and our allies from the threat North Korea poses. It is incumbent on China to make sure that the threat from North Korea is removed, so that China does not face that same kind of pressure from the U.S.," Rosenberger said.
Gray said Trump would seek to negotiate with China rather than pressure it to restrain North Korea.
"Trump is willing to negotiate from a position of strength with China to see if we can come to an agreement. He wants to say it is not in China's interests to have this reckless, rogue nuclear regime on its border, especially when it is showing signs of strain," Gray said, pointing to the August defection of North Korea's deputy ambassador to London and South Koran media reports of senior North Korean military and government officials being executed this year.
"Trump is willing to look at the [U.S.-China] relationship holistically and see if Beijing can play a constructive role with Pyongyang," he added.
VOA Ukrainian service journalist Tatiana Vorozhko contributed to this report.
http://www.voanews.com/a/advisers-point-differences-clinton-trump-china-policies/3579849.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/advisers-point-differences-clinton-trump-china-policies/3579849.htmlSat, 05 Nov 2016 14:25:15 -0400USAAsia2016 USA Voteswebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/advisers-point-differences-clinton-trump-china-policies/3579849.html#relatedInfoContainerRise of Hong Kong Localists in Election Puts US in QuandaryA Hong Kong election that saw unprecedented wins by “localist” activists seeking self-determination for the autonomous Chinese territory is posing a dilemma for the United States.
Washington often has promoted democratic movements around the world, but it also has recognized Hong Kong as a special administrative region of China since Britain returned it to Chinese rule in 1997.
The U.S. State Department reacted cautiously to the first-time victories of six localists in Hong Kong’s September 4 election for its 70-seat Legislative Council, or Legco. The localists will join two other radicals and 22 moderates as part of a 30-strong “opposition” bloc of lawmakers advocating greater democracy for Hong Kong.
Obama administration responds
In a statement to VOA, the State Department’s East Asia and Pacific Bureau spokesperson, Anna Richey-Allen, welcomed Hong Kong’s record voter turnout as an “affirmation of the commitment of (its) people to participate in the democratic process.”
But Richey-Allen made no specific mention of the newly-elected localists. Instead, she said the Obama administration “looks forward to working with all elected leaders to build strong relations between the United States and Hong Kong and achieve mutually beneficial goals.”
Could one of those goals be Hong Kong self-determination, a desire of the localists who complain that Hong Kong's identity is being eroded by Beijing and by a growing influx of mainland Chinese? The localists want changes to Hong Kong’s constitution or Basic Law to allow citizens to decide whether or not they want independence from Beijing after the territory’s 50-year period of autonomy ends in 2047.
The Chinese government has criticized Hong Kong independence advocates as separatists and belittled them as a fringe minority. When China’s number-three ranking leader Zhang Dejiang visited the territory in May, he warned that Hong Kong would “undoubtedly rot” if it gave up its “one country, two systems” formula of autonomy, enshrined in the Basic Law.
Empathizing with localism
Richard Bush, a China analyst at the Brookings Institution, sees one scenario in which the United States could endorse the localists’ vision.
"If, somehow, Beijing in the next 30 years were to decide that the localists are right, and that Hong Kong people should at some point before 2047 be allowed to have an exercise of self-determination, and if they decided to set up a separate country, then the United States is not going to object to that,” Bush told VOA’s China 360 podcast. But he said Washington “accepted as a reality, and still accepts as a reality, that Hong Kong is part of China.”
U.S. Congressman Chris Smith, who chairs the Hong Kong Caucus in the House of Representatives, expressed sympathy for the localists in a statement emailed to VOA.
Smith said he was concerned about death threats aimed at incoming localist lawmaker Eddie Chu, and about what he called the Hong Kong government’s “seemingly arbitrary disqualification” of other localists who sought to stand in the election. Electoral authorities disqualified several localists earlier this year for refusing to sign newly-introduced documents stating that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China.
Smith said the Legco election was “an important symbol of Hong Kong's vitality, freedoms, and fight to remain an autonomous and prosperous bridge between China and the West.” He also pledged to continue congressional monitoring of Hong Kong’s democratic progress, saying its “high level of autonomy and guaranteed freedoms are a clear U.S. interest.”
Risking a backlash
It is not yet clear when U.S. lawmakers or officials will meet or speak with Hong Kong’s victorious localists. But expressing strong U.S. support for the localists’ views would be a mistake, according to Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, part of the U.S. government-run Wilson Center research institute.
“These are Chinese people ultimately under the leadership of the Communist Party whether we like it or not.” said Daly, also speaking to VOA China 360. “The United States very much wants Hong Kong to retain its many civic freedoms, but we also want those things in general for all Chinese people. It would be extremely destabilizing and destructive not only to U.S.-China relations but also to the cause of greater Hong Kong autonomy for the United States to weigh in with a heavy hand as though it could influence Beijing or had a direct interest in the outcome."
Brookings senior fellow Bush said he believes the United States should make a special effort to advocate for Hong Kong people’s democratic aspirations.
“Hong Kong is at a different point in its political and social development (compared with mainland China) and that allows a different policy position,” Bush said. “China, in the Basic Law, granted Hong Kong people rights that are present in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and it granted the rule of law through an independent judiciary. All of those are precious assets and the United States should oppose any backsliding from what Hong Kong already has.”
Bush also said Washington should press Beijing, Hong Kong’s government and its political parties to improve the existing political system under the Basic Law. “Experimenting with elections in Hong Kong and getting the bugs out of the system could be very useful in preparing (mainland) China for the day, which I hope will come, where it picks more leaders by genuine competitive elections," he said.
State Department Correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this report.
http://www.voanews.com/a/rise-of-hong-kong-localists-in-election-puts-us-in-quandary/3510077.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/rise-of-hong-kong-localists-in-election-puts-us-in-quandary/3510077.htmlThu, 15 Sep 2016 01:34:32 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)Uighurs, Wary of China’s Response to Kyrgyzstan Attack, Trying to Stop MilitancyA prominent ethnic Uighur rights group says it fears China will exploit a Uighur militant’s suicide attack on its embassy in Kyrgyzstan last week to repress minority Uighurs in the neighboring Chinese region of Xinjiang.
In its first detailed public response to the August 30 suicide car bombing that killed only the attacker and wounded several Kyrgyz security guards at the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, a World Uyghur Congress representative told VOA that his group condemns the Bishkek blast and “all kinds of terrorism”, including what he referred to as “Chinese state terrorism” against its own people. WUC’s Washington-based vice president, Omer Kanat, was referring to the Chinese government’s crackdown on Uighur militants whom Beijing blames for several deadly attacks on civilians around the country and for sectarian violence between minority Uighurs and majority Han Chinese in Xinjiang in recent years.
Kanat said he expects Beijing to use the Bishkek attack as a pretext to intensify what he called its ongoing crackdown against the Uighur people – mostly Muslim Turkic-speakers living primarily in Xinjiang – and to “further restrict their religious and cultural rights.” Many Uighurs accuse Chinese authorities of persecution and turning them into a minority in their homeland by flooding it with Han Chinese settlers. China has said it grants Uighurs wide-ranging freedoms.
​Identifying culprits
Kyrgyzstan named the embassy bomber as Zoir Khalimov, a 33-year-old Uighur with a Tajik passport and a member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM – a separatist group seeking to split Xinjiang from China. Bishkek also said it believes the attack was masterminded by Uighur militants fighting alongside other Islamists in Syria. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday Beijing will be “firm” in fighting what she called ETIM’s “bloody crimes” and in cooperating with Kyrgyzstan and other nations to combat terrorism.
Kanat said his rights group believes Beijing will use its economic influence in neighboring Central Asian states such as Kyrgyzstan to pressure them into suppressing dissent within their Uighur communities as well. A 2012 Canadian government report said at least 50,000 Uighurs were living in Kyrgyzstan, accounting for almost one per cent of its population.
Uighur militants rarely have targeted Chinese people or diplomatic missions abroad. But the risk of further attacks is “substantial,” according to Raffaello Pantucci, director of International Security Studies at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Syria connection
In an interview with VOA’s China 360 podcast, Pantucci said videos, photos and messages from recent battles in Syria and Iraq show that several hundred Uighurs have traveled to those countries to fight on behalf of Islamist groups Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. “We also have seen through various leaks of documents of the Islamic State militant group that it has at least 100 or 200 fighters from the Uighur community," he said.
Pantucci said Uighur militancy is becoming an international problem. "We are seeing an interesting situation in which a terrorism problem that China used to face within the country is starting to export itself in a very violent way."
Sean Roberts, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University in the U.S. capital, told VOA China 360 that jihadists have been recruiting Uighurs from among refugees fleeing the Chinese government’s security crackdown in Xinjiang.
“The Uighurs are not necessarily militants when they leave China, but as they move through Southeast Asia with the help of human trafficking networks, more and more of them are being recruited by various radical groups,” Roberts said. Many Uighur refugees have been transiting Southeast Asia en route to Turkey, which has strong cultural links to Uighur communities.​
Roberts said people who spoke to radicalized Uighurs in Syria told him the militants hoped to get combat experience to someday liberate what they perceive as their homeland inside China. But he said many of them likely will die fighting before they can try to carry out attacks like the one in Bishkek.
"The greater threat to China from terrorism is that militants besides the Uighurs also begin identifying China as an enemy of Islam,” said Roberts.
Exploiting refugees
World Uighur Congress’ Kanat said he is aware of the problem of Uighur radicalization. He said some Uighur refugees have told him that Islamist radicals approached them in Thailand and Turkey, promising housing and money if they went to Islamist-controlled parts of Syria and Iraq, countries that he said the refugees know little about.
“Some of those refugees had no house and no food in Turkey - they were helpless, so they said, ‘we chose to go to Syria,’” Kanat told VOA. “But they found war and killing – not what they wanted, so they escaped back to Turkey.”
Kanat said his group has been working with Ankara to resettle Uighur refugees in the central Turkish province of Kayseri. “We have been approaching the refugees to explain the situation in Syria and Iraq and how Islamist extremism is harmful for the Uighur cause,” he said. “Some Uighurs are brainwashed [by jihadists], but we are trying to rescue those who are not brainwashed, and have convinced many of them not to go to Syria.”
http://www.voanews.com/a/uighurs-wary-of-china-response-to-kyrgyzstan-attack-try-to-stop-militancy/3500032.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/uighurs-wary-of-china-response-to-kyrgyzstan-attack-try-to-stop-militancy/3500032.htmlFri, 09 Sep 2016 03:31:22 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/uighurs-wary-of-china-response-to-kyrgyzstan-attack-try-to-stop-militancy/3500032.html#relatedInfoContainerChina Ups Pressure on South Korea Over Missile PlanChina appears to be intensifying a diplomatic and cultural campaign against a U.S.-South Korean plan to deploy an American missile defense system in South Korea – a system Beijing sees as threatening its security.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed “firm opposition” to the 2017 deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se in Tokyo on Wednesday, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. It was China’s first direct high-level diplomatic protest to South Korea about the THAAD plan since Seoul and Washington announced it on July 8. The two allies said the move is aimed at protecting South Korea and American troops stationed there from what they view as an enhanced threat of a North Korean ballistic missile attack.
Chinese television networks also have obscured or deleted images of South Korean K-Pop stars in their programs in recent weeks. Chinese state-run news site Global Times reported Wednesday that eastern China’s Jiangsu Television “cut shots or blurred the images” of ‘Gangnam Style’ singer Psy and musical group iKON in a reality show broadcast on August 21. In another case, Chinese online media site Sina reported this month that Zhejiang Television, also in eastern China, deleted some scenes of singer Hwang Chi-yeul and pixilated his image in other parts of an August 13 episode of its Challengers Union variety show.
Cultural retaliation?
Chinese and South Korean media outlets such as Global Times and Korea Joongang Daily have described the recent expunging of South Korean pop icons admired in China from Chinese television programs as part of an undeclared Beijing policy of punishing Seoul for agreeing to host the U.S. missile defense system. South Korean media also have reported that Chinese companies canceled several appearances by South Korean celebrities in China after the THAAD announcement. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said earlier this year that her country’s entertainment sector plays an “important” role in boosting South Korean exports and attracting tourists.
In an interview for VOA’s China 360 podcast, Korea analyst Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations said it is hard to draw a direct correlation between the misfortunes of the K-Pop stars in China and Beijing’s anger about the impending deployment of THAAD in South Korea.
“It is not uncommon to have sudden cancellations of Korean concerts in China because they are not necessarily a steady business,” Synder said.
But Snyder pointed to another apparent Chinese pressure tactic against Seoul: China announcing earlier this month a tightening of rules for South Korean tourists to apply for group visas to visit the country. “That probably is going to slow the volume of South Korean tourism to China," he said.
China’s complaint
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang reiterated the reasons for Beijing’s long-held opposition to the planned U.S. missile defense shield in South Korea last month. He said it will “exceed” Seoul’s defense needs, “undermine” China’s security interests and “shatter” the regional balance of power.
China is the only East Asian nation armed with nuclear missiles. In a separate VOA interview, Brad Glosserman, executive director of Hawaii-based foreign policy institute Pacific Forum, said Chinese leaders “fear that (THAAD) is a weapons system that can be used to neutralize their nuclear deterrent.”
But Chinese diplomatic protests and perceived acts of cultural retaliation have not persuaded Washington and Seoul to scrap the deployment.
Skeptical responses
Snyder said Beijing has miscalculated in its strategy. “The THAAD system’s radar could potentially cover parts of mainland China, but it would require changes in configuration to be able to defend against missiles from there,” he said. “So China’s objections have not held water for U.S. and South Korean military planners who are focused on a North Korean offensive missile threat.”
The Council on Foreign Relations analyst said China’s behavior also has raised doubts about whether it is objecting to THAAD for purely military reasons. "The telling component of the Chinese response has been that despite U.S. and South Korean offers to provide a technical briefing regarding THAAD’s capabilities, the Chinese have rejected those particular offers,” he said. “So it means that they are really viewing this deployment through a political lens." China’s angry response to the U.S.-South Korean THAAD agreement followed months of Chinese efforts to persuade South Korea not to boost its military alliance with the United States – Beijing’s longtime military and economic rival.
Do Chinese leaders have any other options for trying to counter the U.S. and South Korean missile defense plan? Snyder said he believes they do.
"Chinese military planners must be working on potential countermeasures that China might take in the event of a potential conflict with the United States, and focusing on questions of whether to target U.S. military bases in South Korea and Japan (also a U.S. ally),” he said. “This would be consistent with Chinese military planning related to the ability to defend their own areas and also to target U.S. aircraft carriers perceived as sources of potential offensive threat to China."
VOA's Victor Beattie contributed to this report.
http://www.voanews.com/a/china-ups-pressure-on-south-korea-over-missile-plan/3480077.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/china-ups-pressure-on-south-korea-over-missile-plan/3480077.htmlThu, 25 Aug 2016 00:05:47 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/china-ups-pressure-on-south-korea-over-missile-plan/3480077.html#relatedInfoContainerWhy Location of China-Russia South China Sea Drill MattersChina's newly-announced plan to stage its first joint naval drill with Russia in the South China Sea has analysts wondering: where exactly in the sensitive region will the exercise take place?
The Chinese defense ministry kept the world guessing when it made the announcement last Thursday, providing few details beyond saying the drill, codenamed "Joint Sea-2016,” will happen in September.
"The specific location is going to be very important in determining just how controversial this drill is," said Shannon Tiezzi, editor of the online news site The Diplomat, on this week's VOA China 360 podcast.
China has been engaged in decades-long disputes with five smaller neighbors who challenge its claim of sovereignty over most of the South China Sea: Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
An international court in The Hague rejected China's sovereignty claims on July 12, but Beijing vowed to ignore the ruling.
WATCH: The South China Sea dispute explained:
Drill scenarios
Tiezzi said Beijing might avoid the ire of its neighbors if it holds the joint exercise with Moscow off the coast of the southern Chinese island of Hainan.
"China has held many drills very close to Hainan, where there are not any territorial or maritime disputes because it is so close to undisputed Chinese territory and longstanding Chinese military bases,” she said. "However, if the drills start moving south toward the disputed Spratly Islands and make use of some of the new facilities China has built there, that would be much more of a warning sign for the international community."
Beijing has turned several Spratly islets that it has long occupied into artificial islands in the past year, using land reclamation to build military-capable runways and ports. Those reclamations have drawn criticism from the Spratly Islands' rival claimants and from the United States, although Washington has said it is neutral on the competing maritime claims and wants them to be resolved peacefully.
If Beijing wanted to stage a joint exercise close to disputed South China Sea archipelagos such as the Spratlys or the Paracels, would Moscow agree?
China recently has been touting what it sees as Russian support for its South China Sea stance. In April, Chinese state media outlet Xinhua "applauded" Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for criticizing efforts by some regional governments to internationalize their maritime disputes with China. Beijing has opposed such efforts because it prefers to negotiate with its weaker rivals one-by-one.
Russian dilemma
But Russia, like the United States, also has called for a diplomatic solution to the South China Sea disputes. One of the parties involved, Vietnam, has been buying Russian weapons since the Cold War.
"If Russia is seen as siding too much with China, that is going to upset Vietnam,” said Tiezzi. "There already is a sense that because of Russia's neutrality on the South China Sea issue, Vietnam now is turning to the United States for security support and jeopardizing Russia's relationship with a longstanding security partner."
Moscow also faces pressure to stay on good terms with Beijing as the two sides deepen their security cooperation, which included joint drills in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Sea of Japan in 2015.
Tiezzi said Russia has a common desire with China to prevent the United States from having unopposed global leadership. She said that desire trumps Russia's interest in the South China Sea, a region it does not see as vital to its security.
The Diplomat editor said Moscow's ambivalence toward Chinese claims in the South China Sea is similar to Beijing's reaction to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, when Crimeans voted in a Russia-backed referendum to secede from Ukraine.
"China was not thrilled, because from its point of view, allowing a group of people to choose to leave a country sets a very dangerous precedent,” she said. "But at the same time, it was not a vital interest for China's leaders, and they thought they saw more benefit by at least giving Russia the appearance of support."
Win-win option?
One way for Russia and China to satisfy each other's needs in the South China Sea could be to stage September's exercise close to Hainan.
"If we see the exercises only taking place in undisputed areas, that would be Russia walking its fine line,” said Tiezzi. "That would allow China to say, 'Look, we held a joint exercise with Russia in the South China Sea,' while Russia can say, 'Yes, but this is in undisputed international waters, or waters where China has maritime control.'"
http://www.voanews.com/a/location-matters-for-russia-china-south-china-sea-drill/3448594.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/location-matters-for-russia-china-south-china-sea-drill/3448594.htmlThu, 04 Aug 2016 00:36:27 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/location-matters-for-russia-china-south-china-sea-drill/3448594.html#relatedInfoContainerUS Cyber Pros: Hackers Could Hit Electronic Voting Machines NextU.S. cyber security professionals say suspected foreign hackers who recently attacked computer systems of the Democratic Party could do something even more sinister in the future.
The cyber pros, who appeared on this week's Hashtag VOA program, said U.S. electronic voting systems are likely to be among the next targets.
When the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks published leaked emails of the U.S. Democratic National Committee last month, it caused major embarrassment to the party, and forced U.S. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to quit her position as the DNC chairperson.
Cybersecurity analyst Richard Forno said that outcome shows foreign hackers can achieve political goals and incentivizes them to escalate their attacks.
"Interfering with the electoral and political process of countries is a classic tool of intelligence and foreign policy,” said Forno, who directs the University of Maryland’s Center for Cybersecurity. “Even though we are moving toward an era of electronic and technology-enabled voting in more places, this [DNC cyberattack] reinforces the fact that the traditional threats are still with us, and are now moving further into cyberspace."
Electronic voting machines are part of that cyberspace. The vast majority of U.S. states will use them for this November's national elections.
But a 2015 study by New York University found that 43 of those states had machines that were at least a decade old.
Could they be hacked as well? Cyber security pros attending an annual Las Vegas conference known as Black Hat think so.
Attack in Ukraine
One of them is Toni Gidwani, research director at ThreatConnect, a cyberdefense platform used by 1,200 companies and organizations worldwide. She said there is a precedent for attacks on voting systems.
"We saw that in Ukraine in 2014, where three days before the election, the Ukrainian central election committee suffered a massive hack that threatened their ability to hold voting on schedule,” she said. “And then malware was discovered right before results were announced – malware that would have projected a totally different outcome in which an ultranationalist candidate, who in reality received less than 1 percent of the vote, would have won. So this is not science fiction - we have already seen this happen."
Some U.S. voting machines produce paper records that can be used in case of problems with a vote count. But keeping a paper trail might not be enough.
Yong-Gon Chon, another Black Hat attendee, said any organization seeking to protect itself from hackers needs all of its personnel to play their part.
"It is no longer just the responsibility of a chief security officer or CIO to protect an organization's infrastructure - everyone has a role to play,” said Chon, who serves as CEO of Cyber Risk Management and has led global security teams for more than 20 years. “There is a shared level of responsibility, whether you are using cloud systems or your own systems within your organizations. And ultimately it is about being able to practice safe and healthy (cyber) activities on a day to day basis."
One healthy habit recommended by Chon is being skeptical when you receive an email containing a hyperlink that could expose you to a hacker.
“You should determine whether or not that is something that you should trust and is acceptable for your business,” he said.
http://www.voanews.com/a/us-cyber-pros-hackers-could-hit-electronic-voting-machines-next/3446923.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/us-cyber-pros-hackers-could-hit-electronic-voting-machines-next/3446923.htmlWed, 03 Aug 2016 16:45:13 -0400USASilicon Valley & Technologywebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)US Cyber Pros: Hackers Could Hit Electronic Voting Machines NextU.S. cybersecurity professionals say foreign hackers suspected of recently attacking the computer systems of the Democratic Party could do something even more sinister in the future. The cyber pros who appeared on this week's Hashtag VOA program say U.S. electronic voting systems are likely to be among the next targets. VOA's Michael Lipin explains.http://www.voanews.com/a/cyber-professionals-hackers-could-attack-voting-machines-next/3447905.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/cyber-professionals-hackers-could-attack-voting-machines-next/3447905.htmlWed, 03 Aug 2016 16:21:00 -0400USASilicon Valley & Technologywebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)China Responds to US Trade Challenge With Same Losing ArgumentChina’s initial response to a new trade confrontation with the United States has been to use the same arguments that led to Chinese defeats in two previous disputes with Washington.
The Obama administration triggered the confrontation last Wednesday, asking the World Trade Organization to start a process for resolving a U.S. complaint about duties that China imposes on its exports of nine raw materials to the United States. Those exports include antimony, cobalt, copper, graphite, lead, magnesia, talc, tantalum and tin – raw materials made more expensive for U.S. manufacturers by the 5 to 20 percent duties, which are not applied to Chinese companies.
The office of the U.S. trade representative said the Chinese export duties “provide substantial competitive advantages for Chinese manufacturers,” and should have been removed under promises that China made when acceding to the WTO in 2001. At the time, China committed to remove export duties on all products except those in a specific annex to its accession agreement. The nine Chinese raw materials being taxed are not listed in that annex.
Chinese response
The Reuters news agency quoted China’s commerce ministry as saying it "regrets" the July 13 U.S. action at the WTO. The ministry also defended its export duties on the raw materials as necessary to protect China's environment and to prevent its natural resources from being over-exploited by manufacturers.
China used that reasoning in two previous disputes with the United States at the WTO and cited global trade rules that allow member states to impose export duties under certain circumstances. In those cases, Beijing faced U.S. complaints about export duties on other raw materials and on rare earths.
Gary Hufbauer, an analyst at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, told VOA’s China 360 podcast that the United States essentially has made the same accusation in all three cases: “which basically is that China is restraining exports of certain raw materials to benefit domestic industries that use those materials to produce industrial goods.”
In the two earlier cases, the WTO sided with the United States.
"The WTO did not see that the Chinese restrictions (on resource exploitation) were applied evenhandedly to Chinese companies versus foreign companies in terms of preserving the environment,” Hufbauer said. “(In the latest case), China will need to show that Chinese firms using the resources in question also are forced to conserve, and that is going to be a hard thing for them to show, but maybe I will be surprised."
Next steps
Before China makes its case directly to the WTO, Chinese and U.S. negotiators must engage in “consultations” to try to resolve the dispute. If they are unable to do so, a WTO panel is formed.
"In a panel proceeding, it takes a while (for the WTO) to find panelists and bring them together, maybe a year,” Hufbauer said. “After that, (the case) goes to the appellate body. So if China decides to fight it every step of the way, we are looking at a year-and-a-half or two years (for a ruling) – well into the next U.S. administration."
The new U.S. complaint at the WTO is the 13th to be filed against China by the Obama administration, which leaves office in January. It has won all of the cases decided by the WTO so far.
Peterson Institute analyst Hufbauer said he believes China's ministry of commerce or MOFCOM will not allow the latest case to drag on until the WTO has to issue a ruling.
"There have been cases in the past where Chinese legal experts in MOFCOM looked at the facts and said, ‘Well, we are wrong, and we will reach a settlement’. And that is certainly possible (this time), given the past two cases which China lost,” he said. “MOFCOM is a professional outfit, and many of its lawyers have been educated in the United States, so they know what they are talking about."
But even if China’s commerce ministry lawyers decide to accept the U.S. demands to drop export duties in this case, Hufbauer said they might delay such a move for a while.
"Whether a settlement will come before the U.S. presidential election (in November) or after is hard to say,” he said. “I am inclined to think a settlement will come after, so as to be some kind of token of Chinese engagement with the next U.S. administration."
http://www.voanews.com/a/china-responds-to-us-trade-challenge-with-same-losing-argument/3424029.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/china-responds-to-us-trade-challenge-with-same-losing-argument/3424029.htmlMon, 18 Jul 2016 23:31:59 -0400USAAsiaEconomywebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)China Hardens Position Against Hong Kong BooksellersChina is toughening its position in the case of five Hong Kong booksellers it detained last year for publishing books critical of Chinese leaders.
The detentions have fueled global concern about perceived threats to the autonomous Chinese territory’s freedoms.
Last week, Chinese authorities threatened stronger legal action against one of the booksellers whom they recently released, Lam Wing-kee, and challenged his account of being mistreated while in custody.
Lam went missing in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen last October, the same month that three of his colleagues also disappeared, two of them in southern China and the other one, Gui Minhai, in Thailand. A fifth member of the bookseller's group, Lee Bo, vanished in December in Hong Kong.
All five reappeared in January and February on Chinese TV networks, confessing to breaking Chinese law for using their Hong Kong bookstore, Mighty Current, to sell books banned by Beijing to readers in mainland China. The televised confirmations of the booksellers being in Chinese custody intensified international criticism of Beijing from the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.
Under pressure
William Nee, a Hong Kong-based China researcher for rights group Amnesty International, said the booksellers’ case had turned into a “public relations disaster” for Beijing.
"The Chinese government has been trying to find a way to resolve this and stop the hemorrhaging," Nee told VOA’s China 360 podcast.
He said Beijing’s initial move was to put the booksellers on Chinese TV earlier this year to try to show that they were being treated fairly. But, he said the appearances did not have the desired effect.
"They put [Mighty Current co-owner] Gui Minhai on national news network CCTV to say that he felt a pang of conscience and came back to China to confess to a crime he supposedly committed more than 10 years ago – but that does not make any sense,” he said.
Nee also noted the Phoenix TV appearance by bookstore shareholder Lee Bo, who spoke about smuggling himself from Hong Kong to mainland China. “That also made no sense,” he said. “The international community has not bought these explanations."
Hong Kong rights activists have said they suspect Lee was seized in Hong Kong by Chinese agents and secretly taken into the mainland, in violation of Hong Kong’s autonomous constitution, or Basic Law.
Additional gestures
In March, China took a bigger step by releasing Lee and two of the other booksellers who had been detained on the mainland, and letting them return to Hong Kong. The three have kept a low profile since.
Beijing made a further effort to ease international concerns in April through a senior official at the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, Wang Zhenmin. Wang described the booksellers’ detentions as “very unfortunate” and said “no one wants such a case to happen here in Hong Kong.” He also said, “Only Hong Kong’s government can enforce the law within the legal jurisdiction of Hong Kong. This is protected under the principle of ‘one country two systems.'"
Nee said Wang’s language “reassured” Hong Kong people “a little bit."
But Beijing's conciliatory moves ended after it allowed bookseller Lam to return to Hong Kong in June. He has not kept a low profile.
Two days after arriving home on June 14, Lam held a news conference accusing Chinese security agents of abducting him and taking him to the eastern city of Ningbo. He said they kept him isolated there for five months and coerced him into giving up his legal rights and making the televised confession of breaking Chinese law.
Lam said the Chinese agents allowed him to return to Hong Kong on condition that he would bring his bookstore's customer data back to the mainland. He said he decided to defy that order in order to tell the world what happened to him and his associates, and because he has no family on the mainland to worry about, as opposed to the three booksellers who returned to Hong Kong before him.
Rights activists have accused Beijing of using the mainland-based relatives of the booksellers as leverage to keep them quiet.
Since Lam made his accusations, China has gone on the offensive. State-run media reported on July 5 that Ningbo’s public security chief warned Lam to return to the mainland or face "other legal measures.”
Toughening stance
"China has reignited the fires to some extent, with the Ningbo police saying they could change the criminal course of measures against Lam,” Nee said.
Last week, Beijing officials also showed a visiting Hong Kong delegation a video of Lam in custody, appearing to show him being well treated, cheerfully eating food and getting a haircut. They were the types of scenes that Lam had said were coerced by Chinese security agents.
"The fact that [Chinese authorities] were using this video to show the Hong Kong side that what they did to Lam was lawful, is just unbelievable,” Nee said. “I think what we are seeing is that there is not satisfactory coordination between China’s public security bureau and its foreign relations and soft power projection."
Nee called for more international pressure on Chinese leaders to resolve the booksellers' cases, with bookstore co-owner Gui Minhai still in detention.
“We do not know what charges they eventually will put on him. So this case could potentially go on for years, which is why we need prolonged and intense focus from the international community, including the United States," he said.
http://www.voanews.com/a/china-hardens-position-against-hong-kong-booksellers/3417751.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/china-hardens-position-against-hong-kong-booksellers/3417751.htmlThu, 14 Jul 2016 00:00:09 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/china-hardens-position-against-hong-kong-booksellers/3417751.html#relatedInfoContainerHong Kong Rights Group Calls China's NGO Law a ‘Step Forward’A Hong Kong group advocating for workers' rights in mainland China says the country has taken a “step forward” by passing a new law to regulate overseas nongovernmental organizations.
Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin is one of the overseas NGOs covered by the law, and its positive view of that Chinese law contrasts with strong criticisms from human rights activists and even the U.S. government.
Beijing approved the Law on the Management of Overseas NGO Activities Within Mainland China in April. When it takes effect on January 1st, the NGOs will come under supervision of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.
The law gives the overseas NGOs two options. One is to register a representative office in mainland China with the ministry. The second is for the NGOs to declare that they are operating in the country temporarily with a Chinese partner organization or sponsor.
Providing clarity
“I think we need to see the NGO law for what it is,” said Shawn Shieh, China Labour Bulletin’s deputy director, while visiting Washington last week. Speaking to VOA’s China 360 podcast, he called the law “an attempt to regulate a sector that has not been regulated before in any comprehensive way."
Shieh said overseas NGOs have been looking to Beijing for guidance on what they can and cannot do since the 1990s, when he said they started coming to China in significant numbers.
He also said Beijing is promising to support NGOs who have questions about the registration process, indicating that it values their presence.
“I think the Chinese government’s recognition that overseas NGOs play an important, valuable role in the country is not a bad thing,” Shieh said.
Beijing has said the law is intended to clarify the NGOs’ legal rights and obligations in mainland China.
New prohibitions
Chinese leaders also have said the measure has a national security element, banning overseas NGOs from engaging in activities deemed harmful to Chinese national interests.
Such language has angered human rights activists. One group, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, has called for the law to be repealed, saying Beijing will use it to “suffocate” China's “already beleaguered” independent organizations.
The Obama administration also has expressed concern. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said last month the law will create an "unwelcome environment" for overseas NGOs in China, while the U.S. National Security Council said in April it will "further narrow the space" for Chinese civil society.
China Labour Bulletin deputy director Shieh offered a different perspective, saying he does not see Beijing’s new NGO registration system narrowing the space for his group to operate.
"Chinese public security probably already knows a lot about what we and other NGOs are doing,” he said. “They talk to our partners and take them ‘out to tea’, which is a euphemism for basically interrogating individuals about their activities. So I do not think the law’s notification requirement is adding anything new to what the authorities already know."
Maneuvering space
Shieh also said he does not expect China to implement the NGO law quickly, based on his group’s experience of trying to ensure that Beijing enforces its laws on workers’ rights.
“China passed labor laws in 2008, 2009 and the ensuing years, but a lot of them have not been enforced,” he said. “So why do we assume that this overseas NGO law is suddenly going to be enforced in full?"
The labor rights activist said he understands why some overseas NGOs feel that Beijing is “closing the door” on them by passing the law. But instead of staying away from China, Shieh said those groups have an opportunity to engage with it.
"Overseas NGOs, their Chinese partners and the U.S. and Chinese governments will have room to shape the new law’s implementation because some Chinese officials do not necessarily agree with it,” he said. “They can try to implement the law in a way that is fair and does not selectively root out and close down certain, more sensitive NGOs. The law is by no means a done deal."
http://www.voanews.com/a/why-a-hong-kong-rights-group-calls-china-ngo-law-a-step-forward/3405867.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/why-a-hong-kong-rights-group-calls-china-ngo-law-a-step-forward/3405867.htmlTue, 05 Jul 2016 23:19:47 -0400Asiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/why-a-hong-kong-rights-group-calls-china-ngo-law-a-step-forward/3405867.html#relatedInfoContainerUS Media Scrutinize Wave of Chinese Migrants Illegally Crossing From MexicoA surge in Chinese migrants seeking a better life in the United States by illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border is capturing the attention of U.S. media.
The San Diego Union-Tribune broke the story earlier this month, saying it obtained U.S. Customs and Border Protection data showing the agency caught 663 Chinese nationals making the illegal crossing from Mexico into San Diego, California, from last October through May.
The newspaper said the latest apprehensions compared to only 48 Chinese migrants being caught along that part of the border in the previous 12 months, reflecting an increase of more than 13 times for the current fiscal year, with four more months to go.
Since the data emerged, several migration analysts have been quoted in U.S. news reports trying to explain the significance of the jump in illicit border crossings by Chinese migrants.
Putting surge into context
One of them is Elliott Young, a history professor at Lewis & Clark College and author of a book on the history of Chinese migration to the United States, Alien Nation.
“One thing to keep in mind is not to blow this out of proportion,” Young told VOA’s China 360 podcast. “The numbers in terms of overall undocumented migration are relatively small."
Young said the hundreds of Chinese migrants apprehended around San Diego, California, in the past year represent only a fraction of the total number of undocumented Chinese living in America.
A Washington-based research group, the Migration Policy Institute, published a report last year, estimating a total of 210,000 unauthorized Chinese nationals in the United States in 2012.
Young said many of those Chinese used different methods to enter the United States.
Other illicit strategies
"About half of the undocumented Chinese population are not people who cross the border clandestinely,” he said. “They are people who have legal tourist and other visas and simply overstay them."
Getting a U.S. tourist or business visa for the purpose of overstaying might seem like a simpler way for Chinese to migrate to America, in contrast to crossing a U.S. border illegally. But it is not an option available to everyone.
A Chinese immigration researcher at New York's Hunter College, Peter Kwong, told the Vice news site this month that there is a class of relatively poor Chinese people who do not have access or connections to get legal visas. He said many of those migrants have been leaving China because of its economic stagnation of the last few years.
But crossing from Mexico to the United States illegally can be an expensive proposition.
The San Diego Union-Tribune quoted a U.S. border patrol spokeswoman as saying smugglers who organize the crossings charge Chinese migrants $50,000-$70,000 a person.
Chinese migration historian Young said few of those migrants can pay those smugglers' fees up front.
"Usually they have to make some kind of down payment of a few thousand dollars and then have to work off their debt in the United States by working in a business,” he said. “They work in restaurants, garment factories and other, often Chinese-owned, businesses."
Using historical techniques
Young said the phenomenon of Chinese migrants illegally crossing the Mexican-U.S. border has a long history.
He said it dates back to an 1882 U.S. law that banned Chinese labor migration for six decades – a ban that some migrants skirted with the help of transnational merchant networks and Chinese hometown associations.
"There have been lots of historical cases of Chinese people being brought into the United States illegally on ships, in railroad coaches, hidden in cars, through tunnels, on airplanes – every imaginable way that humans can think of to cross the border,” Young said. “The Chinese were among the first to invent these ways of evading border control."
The Lewis & Clark College professor said Chinese migrants still use such methods to reach the United States as a way of bypassing contemporary U.S. immigration laws.
U.S. State Department rules limit the number of employment-based and family-sponsored immigrant visa applications that can be processed in the current fiscal year to 25,620 per country. A State Department report said there were 260,265 China mainland-born applicants on its immigrant waiting list as of November 2015.
Young said even if the State Department accepted no further Chinese applications, it would still take more than 10 years of waiting for prospective Chinese immigrants to clear the list.
“It means that because our immigration restrictions are making it virtually impossible for people to legally migrate, they are forced to go through these other clandestine, illegal routes," he said.
http://www.voanews.com/a/us-media-scrutinize-wave-of-chinese-migrants-illegally-crossing-from-mexico/3395048.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/us-media-scrutinize-wave-of-chinese-migrants-illegally-crossing-from-mexico/3395048.htmlTue, 28 Jun 2016 06:00:02 -0400USAAsiaAmericaswebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/us-media-scrutinize-wave-of-chinese-migrants-illegally-crossing-from-mexico/3395048.html#relatedInfoContainerHong Kong’s No. 2 Gets Positive Reviews for Rare Washington VisitHong Kong's number two official made a good impression on some of America's most prominent think tanks last week during a rare visit to Washington.
Carrie Lam and her Hong Kong government colleagues have been facing increased scrutiny in the U.S. capital for their handling of recent political unrest in the autonomous Chinese territory.
Lam's visit to Washington from June 6 to 8 was her first since becoming Hong Kong’s chief secretary in 2012 – a visit that her boss, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, has yet to make since he took office that same year.
Lam had expressed some apprehension about the trip. Before flying to Washington, she told a luncheon in San Francisco that she expected to have discussions on human rights and political issues that "may not be very pleasant."
Touchy subjects
Those unpleasant issues appeared to be a reference to Hong Kong's mass pro-democracy protests that occupied major city streets for almost three months in 2014. Lam also appeared to be referring to the subsequent collapse of her government's electoral reform package in 2015 – a collapse that has left the city's democratic development in limbo.
Hong Kong's government said Lam discussed the failure of those Beijing-backed reforms during her stay in Washington. But the Hong Kong economic and trade office in the U.S. capital released few other details of Lam's closed-door conversations with U.S. think tanks, diplomats, lawmakers and business leaders.
There also was no comment on the talks from either the Obama administration or several U.S. House and Senate members contacted by VOA.
But two analysts who attended Lam's meetings with Washington research institutes spoke to VOA’s China 360 podcast and gave her positive reviews.
Impressing her audience
One of the analysts is Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Bush. "Lam comes across as a very capable and articulate person,” he said. “She is in a really impressive command of the various issues that the Hong Kong government has to manage, and not at all naive about the problems that the territory faces."
The other analyst, The Heritage Foundation's research manager Anthony Kim, said his group discussion with Lam involved a “lively back-and-forth.”
"I think she was trying to convey the details as much as she could and I think those efforts were warmly received,” Kim said. “These kinds [of] remarks are not easy [for her] to make, but I think she conveyed a very balanced and nuanced, detailed message."
A Hong Kong press release said part of Lam's message was expressing "disappointment" that pro-democracy lawmakers vetoed the government's electoral reforms. Those lawmakers said the proposals did not give Hong Kong people what they call a "genuine" choice of candidates for chief executive.
The Hong Kong government countered by saying it was more important for its reforms to adhere to the city's constitution or Basic Law, which limits who can run for chief executive under a system of universal suffrage.
Under those Beijing-imposed limits, the only candidates who could stand for election would have to secure majority approval from a nominating committee resembling an existing body dominated by government loyalists.
Praising HK’s response
Bush of Brookings credited Lam and her colleagues for working within those rules to create what he called a "rather creative" plan.
"It created a two stage process, and it made possible consideration by the nominating committee of a range of potential candidates, including people on the pan-democratic side, of a moderate persuasion,” Bush said. “And so this created a narrow pathway for a moderate pan-democrat to be nominated and conceivably to be elected chief executive."
Since the plan was vetoed, that pathway remains closed, meaning the next chief executive to take office in 2017 will be chosen once again by government loyalists who dominate the existing committee. It is a prospect that has continued to fuel street protests by pro-democracy activists.
But Heritage researcher Kim said Lam and the Hong Kong government have been effective in keeping the situation under control.
“Hong Kong is a very dynamic economy whose rule of law is not near collapse or anything like that,” Kim said. “Despite all the downs and all the negative news we may have seen over the past months, the rule of law there - I think it has been well preserved."
US scrutiny increases
Bush said U.S. interest in the Hong Kong government's performance got a boost from media coverage of the 2014 Occupy protests. Kim said he expects that interest to grow further.
"A lot of observers in Washington will pay greater attention to the future of Hong Kong, especially getting into 2017, which will mark the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the mainland," Kim said.
Bush said another reason he and other U.S. scholars watch Hong Kong is because mainland China could draw inspiration from the way its autonomous region deals with challenges.
"In a way, what happens in Hong Kong is a leading indicator of what may happen politically in China in the long term future,” Bush said. “There are things that Beijing could learn from Hong Kong in how to govern an advanced metropolitan society. So whether there is progress in Hong Kong's political system and in maintaining its competitiveness in a globalized world is not a trivial matter."
Additional reporting by Kinnie Li in Washington.
http://www.voanews.com/a/hong-kong-carrie-lam-gets-positive-reviews-in-washington-visit/3376644.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/hong-kong-carrie-lam-gets-positive-reviews-in-washington-visit/3376644.htmlWed, 15 Jun 2016 03:01:33 -0400USAAsiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/hong-kong-carrie-lam-gets-positive-reviews-in-washington-visit/3376644.html#relatedInfoContainerWho Has an Edge in the South China Sea: China or US?A debate is raging about which side has an edge in the South China Sea dispute, as senior Chinese and U.S. officials meet in Beijing this week to try to resolve sources of tension between them.
China occupies many of the islets and reefs of the South China Sea, a key transit route for international trade. It claims sovereignty over almost all of the sea, despite competing claims and occupations of islets by five other regional governments: Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
The United States expresses neutrality on the territorial disputes. But, it occasionally sends U.S. aircraft and vessels near the Chinese-controlled islets, saying it wants to ensure freedom of navigation in international waters.
China has criticized those U.S. military maneuvers as provocative and supportive of the territorial claims of U.S. allies such as the Philippines. Beijing also has built artificial islands on seven of the reefs it controls and in recent years has deployed military hardware on some of them.
“China is saying, 'We’re here, you can’t do anything about it,'” said Philip Reynolds, a researcher on global conflicts and a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii. “That’s really the basis of my argument that China is winning, or really, it has won.”
Advantage: China
In an interview for VOA’s China 360 podcast, Reynolds said the only way for the United States to reverse China’s reclamations in the Spratly Islands would be to initiate a costly war for which Americans have no appetite. He said Beijing knows this, which is why U.S. freedom of navigation exercises don’t cause the Chinese government to do much more than protest loudly.
“I don’t think China is necessarily trying to stop the United States from being in the area. The goal is, China showing that the United States can’t stop it from being in the area,” Reynolds said.
Both Washington and Beijing say they want the maritime disputes to be resolved diplomatically.
British journalist Bill Hayton, who researches Asian affairs at London’s Chatham House institute, has a different view of the U.S. and Chinese maneuvering in the South China Sea.
Deterrence impact
Hayton, author of South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia, believes Beijing has not “won” the battle with Washington, especially in light of the situation at Scarborough Shoal. That unoccupied reef is claimed not just by China, but also the Philippines – a U.S. ally which hosts American warplanes that flew near the reef in April.
“In the weeks running up to that, there was a lot of discussion about whether China was marshaling ships there, whether it was prepared to start dredging and building land and this kind of thing, and it didn’t happen,” Hayton told VOA. “And it looks as if the U.S. was able to deter a Chinese attempt to build on Scarborough Shoal, but we can’t be sure.”
Hayton also said Beijing has not occupied and developed any new islets in the South China Sea in more than 20 years because Chinese leaders fear the consequences.
“They know that there would be a major diplomatic fallout that would destroy any sense of them being an honest player in the region, and that (such a move) would be so against the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea that it would destroy China's credibility and upset the whole of Southeast Asia,” Hayton said.
China’s credibility faces another threat in the coming months.
Impending setback for Beijing?
A U.N. arbitration panel in The Hague is due to rule on a Philippine complaint against China’s claim to a "nine-dashed line" boundary around the South China Sea, a claim that Manila says undermines the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Beijing has rejected the tribunal’s involvement in the matter, saying it should be resolved only through direct negotiations with Manila.
Hayton said he expects the U.N. panel to rule at least partly in favor of the Philippines by clarifying that China does not have exclusive economic rights to certain waters. But he said the impact of such a ruling on Beijing’s position in the South China Sea would depend on how it responds.
“We have to see whether China actually encourages or discourages its fishing boats from going to fish in those areas, if the court rules that the Philippines in effect has jurisdiction over them,” he said.
A loss at the tribunal also could bolster perceptions that China is being isolated diplomatically.
Speaking last Friday in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea risk creating a ‘Great Wall of self-isolation.’ Carter also said U.S. allies in the region and other Asia-Pacific states share Washington’s concerns about Chinese intentions.
China’s diplomatic campaign
China has downplayed those concerns, saying it is a force for peace and stability because it is willing to resolve the maritime disputes through one-on-one negotiations with its smaller neighbors.
University of Hawaii researcher Reynolds said Beijing also is counting on support from its allies. “China is heavily wooing Cambodia, which gives it a flank around the Vietnamese-U.S. relationship,” he said.
Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua quoted Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong on Monday as telling a visiting Chinese official that he backs China’s position. Xinhua also said Beijing has secured further support from African nations such as Tanzania, Uganda, Eritrea and Comoros.
Reynolds said China is seeking an even bigger diplomatic prize. “I think it's important to watch what Russia does,” he said. “Russia and China have conducted naval maneuvers together. And I think that's the power block to watch.”
http://www.voanews.com/a/who-has-an-edge-in-south-china-sea-china-or-us/3364876.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/who-has-an-edge-in-south-china-sea-china-or-us/3364876.htmlTue, 07 Jun 2016 01:30:42 -0400USAAsiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/who-has-an-edge-in-south-china-sea-china-or-us/3364876.html#relatedInfoContainerEverest Climbers Make Ascent to Inspire OthersClimbing Mount Everest, at 8,848 meters the tallest mountain in the world, has long been the ultimate challenge for people with something to prove. Two of the most recent teams making a bid for the summit learned how the lonely task of climbing a mountain can bring you closer to other people.
On May 24, retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Chad Jukes, 32, became the second combat wounded veteran to get to the summit of Mount Everest, climbing with an artificial leg to replace the limb he lost to an improvised explosive device in Iraq in 2006.
The first was U.S. Marine amputee Charlie Linville, wounded in Afghanistan in 2011, who summited just days earlier.
Jukes, an accomplished climber, was accompanied by two active duty Army officers - 2nd Lt. Harold Earls and Capt. Elyse Ping Medvigy. The trio made their climb in order to bring awareness to post-traumatic stress disorder and the high suicide rate among returning U.S. veterans.
For many veterans, including Jukes, the suicide problem hits close to home. One of the organizers, retired Command Sgt. Maj. Todd Burnett, told Hashtag VOA Tuesday that one of Jukes' Army buddies committed suicide while Jukes was away on the climb.
"There's 22 veterans taking their lives a day," Burnett said. "So we wanted to show the resilience of the climb, and the comradery."
Resilience
Burnett said the team -- known as USX, for the nonprofit U.S. Expeditions and Explorations, completed their descent of the mountain on May 29. "Chad had some frostbite on his hands, Harold had some on his feet, but overall they're in good physical condition," he said.
Burnett said the point of the climb was not to echo the experience of combat, because nothing could do that, but to give the climbers "a life changing experience, just the way combat is. It gives you... people you will have a lifelong bond with. So in the middle of the night, if you're having a problem and you can't cope, you reach out to that person and that person will help you."
Burnett said war veterans give more of themselves in combat than anyone could understand, and he wants to help keep them alive once they come home. He said, "That's what we're trying to do: just raise awareness, show that you can overcome things, and that there's people you can lean on."
The USX team is sharing its expedition the old-fashioned way -- through telling the stories now that the trip is at an end. Adventure guides Cory Richards and Adrian Ballinger carried an extra seven kilograms of equipment up the world's highest peak to share their adventure in progress -- through the mobile app Snapchat.
Snapshots from the top of the world
On Snapchat, Richards told VOA's Andrew Palczewski of Hashtag VOA Tuesday, "You can't alter anything, and you've got a limited amount of time to say something and you just say it, you show it, and you move forward." He said the mobile app gives a "much more raw, unfiltered look" at the climb than traditional media can do.
The app allows the user to post short sound-and-image "snaps" that are accessible for a limited time and then disappear.
Because there is no regular cellular service on the world's highest peak, transmissions took 10 to 15 minutes, so they were accomplished mainly during the climbers' down time. Richards tried to snap an image from the summit itself when he reached it on May 24, but his phone died in the "thin air" -- meaning low oxygen -- at the peak. Because the altitude is as dangerous for humans as it is for cellphones, Richards spent only three minutes at the summit.
But the view from the peak wasn't the most important part of the climbers' message to their followers, Ballinger said. The view they wanted their followers to see was the weeks of work -- including the boring, frustrating and mundane moments -- that lead to one big moment of glory.
VOA's Andrew Palczewski contributed to this report
http://www.voanews.com/a/everest-climbers-make-ascent-to-inspire-others/3356647.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/everest-climbers-make-ascent-to-inspire-others/3356647.htmlTue, 31 May 2016 21:57:13 -0400USAAsiawebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin, Marissa Melton)http://www.voanews.com/a/everest-climbers-make-ascent-to-inspire-others/3356647.html#relatedInfoContainerUS: No Plans for New Social Media Outreach in China after Q&A DeletedThe U.S. embassy in Beijing is taking a break from publicly engaging Chinese people through social media, after its latest online diplomacy effort was shut down earlier this month without explanation.
In a statement emailed to VOA Sunday, the embassy's Beijing press office said: "we do not have any specific plans to announce at this time" for new social media outreach in China.
In the last outreach attempt, four Beijing-based U.S. diplomats partnered with Chinese question-and-answer website Zhihu in late April to answer web users' questions about life in the United States.
A cached version of the "Discover America" webpage shows that it got 1 million views before being deleted May 17. That same day, China's Communist Youth League went on social media to say some Chinese web users were unhappy with the U.S. diplomats for trying to make America look good in the battle for Chinese public opinion.
US concern
The U.S. embassy expressed disappointment with the shutdown of the Q&A session, and said it relayed that message to Chinese authorities. It told VOA: "We look forward to opportunities to engage in genuine dialogues about issues and ideas of interest to Chinese and American people."
Beijing has declined to comment directly on the U.S. complaint. But China's state-run Global Times news site published an editorial May 25 that appeared to send a mixed message. The editorial said it is unnecessary for Chinese internet regulators to be "overly nervous" about every word coming from the United States. It also warned the U.S. embassy not to let its diplomats become "overly active" in trying to influence Chinese opinion.
In an interview for VOA's China 360 podcast, Foreign Policy magazine senior editor David Wertime said it is not clear what the U.S. diplomats can do on social media because China has not codified its position into law.
Lack of clarity
He said the legal uncertainty benefits China's government "because it ensures a degree of self-censorship that in some cases goes beyond what authorities might actually require."
Wertime said he thinks someone at Zhihu may have deleted the U.S. embassy's Q&A page as an act of self-censorship.
"One thing I can say for certain is that there is a good deal of anxiety in some private internet companies about precisely what is OK and what is not," he said. "Clearly an organization like Zhihu would not want to imperil, or do anything that it felt would imperil, its ability to continue to exist as a site."
U.S. social networking giant Facebook has not appeared to show any anxiety about U.S.-based Chinese diplomats using its platform to communicate with Americans. Those diplomats administer a Facebook page for the Chinese consulate in San Francisco.
Engaging Americans online
In some of its latest posts, the Chinese consulate's Facebook page shared photos of Chinese Ambassador to Washington Cui Tiankai hosting a musical event in honor of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. It also posted a political message saying China's "historical rights" in the South China Sea are “undeniable."
Wertime said he is not aware of the U.S. government expressing any concern about the Chinese diplomats' Facebook postings.
"Obviously we have much more robust free speech protections here in the United States — protections which extend to non-citizens," Wertime said. "And we have different values that animate our legal regime here. So it is not surprising that foreign diplomats would get more leeway in the United States than they would in China."
China's embassy in Washington did not respond to questions from VOA about the goals of its diplomats' social media outreach.
Beijing has not only been putting its diplomats on Facebook. Chinese state-run news outlets have been using Facebook to great effect. Four of those outlets — People's Daily, China Xinhua News, China Daily and Global Times — have 33 million Facebook followers combined.
Differing standards
Wertime said those Chinese news sites have been enjoying an American culture for tolerance and free speech that does not exist in China.
"And some people have pointed out this discrepancy and have suggested that we should not be allowing such a degree of latitude to Chinese governmental organs operating in the United States," Wertime said.
China does not provide such freedoms to U.S. media, blocking their news sites when they post content deemed sensitive by Beijing. But Wertime said Chinese leaders do not appear to be too worried about U.S. perceptions of a double standard.
"I think what [China's leaders] are more concerned about is maintaining control and stability," Wertime said. "And what they might say in response to the criticism is, 'yes we do have two sets of standards: you have your laws in the United States, we have our laws in China, and you have got to obey our laws when you are operating in China.' I think the problem there is that it is unclear exactly what it means to obey the rules and regulations in China, because they are so strategically ambiguous."
http://www.voanews.com/a/us-no-plans-social-media-outreach-china-q-and-a-deleted/3354954.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/us-no-plans-social-media-outreach-china-q-and-a-deleted/3354954.htmlMon, 30 May 2016 20:10:09 -0400USAAsiaSilicon Valley & Technologywebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/us-no-plans-social-media-outreach-china-q-and-a-deleted/3354954.html#relatedInfoContainerICIJ Senior Editor Discusses Panama Papers With VOAVOA's Michael Lipin on Sunday conducted an interview with Michael Hudson, a senior editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists about the Panama Papers.
The ICIJ's team of international journalists, working with leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm, has published some of its findings into the offshore financial dealings of the rich and famous, and politically connected, as well as the leaders of some countries.
An anonymous source provided the 11.5 million documents from Panama's Mossack Fonseca law firm to ICIJ, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.
Michael Hudson: We have been doing lots of reporting on the offshore world and have gotten a series of smaller leaks considered huge, (but) compared to what we have, they are small. ... New leak that came in from one of our partners in Germany and they came to us knowing we can bring people together around the world. ... leak (of) 11.5 million documents (on) 200,000 offshore companies.... Information stretches from 1977 to end of 2015. ... No way that one journalist could really dig into this. ... We put together a team of people, more than any 370 journalists from 70 countries (and) more than 100 news organizations have worked on this project which has been stretched out for more than a year. ...
Question: What did you think when you found out the German newspaper had acquired access to so many more documents than you have ever seen in these other leak cases?
Hudson: We are excited, but there is always a level of skeptical excitement, because you can have a leak (but) you have to do the work inside the documents. For us, it is not just a matter of posting a bunch of documents online and telling the world to go at it. ... We want to make connections -- international scandals, politicians -- and dig into that. ... We were excited but held judgment on how good it was until we spent the time in the documents. I can tell you, as my colleagues started working on this, before I did ... began digging, they became increasingly excited and confident that we had something really important. I came on the project six months ago and it became clear that we had important stuff, naming names and celebrities, how offshore world works, how big banks and big law firms and middle men work together. ...
Q: Why is this important to you to be able to show the world how these secretive corporate processes work?
Hudson: This is the shadow side of our global economy the money that flows undetected ... (it's) important to have transparency when you are talking about billions and trillions of dollars, about who controls that money, and where it is going. Are taxes being paid on it? Without some sort of sense of how the offshore system works, you can’t know how the global economy works. One thing that is really important -- anytime there is a big political corruption case, giant Ponzi scheme like Madoff, there will be (an) offshore element when that many people are involved behind (the) scenes are using offshore companies' accounts to hide their activities, and once the scheme is pulled off, escape with the loot.
Q: For you, what was most concerning or alarming findings from all individuals who were part of this investigation?
Hudson: What stuck out to us was the number of politicians we were able to identify -- 140 politicians and public officials from around the world who have offshore entities, … including 12 world leaders ... presidents, ministers and kings ... the ministers of Iceland and Pakistan and King Salman of Saudi Arabia. You can’t say in every single case that someone is doing something wrong or that they are hiding improper practices, but it raises lots of questions with transparency when you have politicians and top leaders of countries moving their holdings offshore and using offshore entities to kind of obscure what they are doing.
The other big thing ... was the number of family members and associates of top leaders that we identified as doing business in the offshore world that included people like the godfather of (Russia President Vladimir) Putin’s daughter (who) records show us played a part in a network of covert maneuvers by banks and companies that were closely tied to Putin and, you know, we have record(s) showing companies linked to this network moving money and transactions as large as $200 million at a time.
Q: Regarding Russian President Putin, is there any evidence from the leaked documents that he or his associates were actually involved in activity that would be considered criminal in Russia?
Hudson: That’s not a question I can answer. I don’t know because I don’t know Russian criminal law enough. We just know that people close to Putin, who are linked by friendship or by business relationships are involved in a lot of transactions that are very transparent that are being done in a quiet and perhaps in (an) even secretive way, moving large chunks of money that raises very serious questions. And I should note that we sent lots of questions to (the) Kremlin, very detailed questions, and (the) Kremlin refused to answer the questions. They did go public several days ago in an effort to preempt our story by charging that ICIJ and its media partner were preparing what (a) Kremlin spokesman called an information attack on Putin and people close to him.
Q: And what do you think of that allegation?
Hudson: Well, you know, it’s not an attack, it is journalism. And, you know, reporting on financial affairs of public officials around the world, that kind of attack, we think it is a public service.
Q: There is also a response from Mossack Fonseca to the publication of these reports, the company said that it does due diligence on its clients to make sure that they are not involved in criminal acts. The company said it is not responsible how its clients manage their companies and Mossack Fonseca even hinted that it might take legal action against those involved in publishing this leaked information. What do you think about Mossack Fonseca's response to your report?
Hudson: I can tell you that Mossack Fonseca's argument is that, yes, we set up offshore companies for people around the world, but they are not really our clients. We worked through other law firms and big banks that bring us people. … They are (the) real clients and the analogy they use is – oh well, we are like a car factory – our liability ends once the car is produced: you can’t be blaming Mossack Fonseca what people do with their companies. … It would be like blaming an automaker if the car is used in a robbery.
Q: Is that fair or not?
Hudson: We think that the story goes much dipper than that. We have numerous examples of Mossack Fonseca either unknowingly or knowingly working with very questionable characters that includes at least 33 people and companies black listed by (the) U.S. government because of evidence that they have been involved in wrongdoing such as doing business with Mexican drug lords or terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. We think there is lots of questions how well Mossack Fonseca screens its clients. … There are just so many examples of the law firm working with people, convicted criminals or people later convicted of crimes, specially money-laundering, that it raises serious questions about how this firm does business. And I should note about the documents. … We are not the first folks to look at the documents. Actually the German government has obtained a smaller slice of leak and used that last year in a series of raids on a German bank that authorities there say is connected to the banks that worked with Mossack Fonseca.
Q: Just a kind of a conclusion: What impact do you hope that Panama Papers will have on how international finances are conducted?
Hudson: We hope that there will be more transparency. We hope that people around the world will pay attention to this issue and we hope that more will be done by the public, by public officials, by public servants, other journalists around the world to really look at this issue and keep scrutiny on what’s happening in this underground economy that is trillion and trillion of dollars.
http://www.voanews.com/a/icij-senior-editor-discusses-panama-papers-with-voa/3268379.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/icij-senior-editor-discusses-panama-papers-with-voa/3268379.htmlMon, 04 Apr 2016 11:14:44 -0400AmericasMobile Top Newswebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/icij-senior-editor-discusses-panama-papers-with-voa/3268379.html#relatedInfoContainerGlobal Warming, El Niño Combine to Fuel Extreme World WeatherA series of weather disasters has shaken the world in recent weeks, with deadly floods in the United States and Britain adding to ongoing droughts in Brazil, South Africa and India.
Global warming is partly to blame because it heats up the world's oceans and sends evaporated water into the atmosphere, where it generates more heat, says Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at U.S. online news service Weather Underground.
"Now with a warmer atmosphere, you have got more energy to power bigger storms," Masters said on this week's Hashtag VOA TV program, in which he appeared via Skype. "Rainstorms will get worse, and when you have drought in a particular area, it can be more intense because the underlying temperatures are higher."
Double impact
Climate change has been raising the planet's temperatures for years. But in 2015, that trend coincided with the start of an unusually strong El Niño, a natural, periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that can last a year or two.
Some climate observers say the concurrence of global warming and El Niño may have caused temperatures at the North Pole to rise briefly above freezing in December, something Weather Underground says has happened only three times since 1948.
Climate change commentator Robert Fanney, author of U.S. blog robertscribbler, told Hashtag VOA the Arctic heatwave has been
melting sea ice and creating a "feedback" effect.
"The loss of sea ice turns a white reflective surface to a dark heat-absorbing surface [i.e. water]," Fanney said. "So during the summertime, the Arctic Ocean is sucking up a lot more heat from the solar rays, and over time it re-radiates that heat over the fall and into the winter. And that is a really big, new impact that we are seeing."
Masters says Arctic sea ice loss due to human-caused global warming also may have caused the Northern Hemisphere jet stream — a narrow band of air currents — to undergo an "unusual contortion."
"That is where the jet stream makes these giant loops, and underneath one of these giant loops that formed in late December and early January, a lot of warm air surged northwards, reaching all the way to the North Pole," Masters said.
Wildlife threatened
The Arctic's polar bears depend on its shrinking ice surface to live, hunt and breed.
And their numbers are dropping, according to Polar Bears International, a U.S. and Canadian nonprofit group dedicated to conserving the animals.
The group's chief scientist Steven Amstrup, appearing on Hashtag VOA via Skype, said he expects more of the animals to disappear even if the international community can limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as agreed to at last month's Paris climate conference.
"The impacts [from a 2° C warming] would be significant, and we would lose polar bears over much of their current range," Amstrup said. "But this is about a lot more than polar bears. People say, 'Well, polar bears live way up north and why should I care?' They really are harbingers of what is coming to the rest of us."
The climate observers say 2016 could bring more losses to human habitats from cyclones, floods and droughts as global warming and El Niño continue to interact with each other in the coming months.
http://www.voanews.com/a/global-warming-el-nino-fuel-extreme-world-weather/3137190.html
http://www.voanews.com/a/global-warming-el-nino-fuel-extreme-world-weather/3137190.htmlFri, 08 Jan 2016 14:23:05 -0500Silicon Valley & Technologywebdesk@voanews.com (Michael Lipin)http://www.voanews.com/a/global-warming-el-nino-fuel-extreme-world-weather/3137190.html#relatedInfoContainer